


Give it time

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cat, Love, M/M, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: Of all pets Arthur could get, Alfred wonders why he got a cat that hates the sight of him. As their relationship starts to suffer, Alfred confronts Arthur and gets a surprising reason behind the choice.





	Give it time

“Does it  _have to_  be that one?”

I leaned against the doorway and only slowly put down my holdall. It was summer, and I was warm - sweat rolled down my back, and my lips were dry. But even with the heat bashing down from above, I wasn’t about to take a step further into Arthur’s hallway. Because at the end of it stood a cat, its tail lifted high, its fur fuzzy and its eyes focused on me as a slow, dreadful gurgle escaped from somewhere behind its bared teeth.

When Arthur said he was going to the shelter, I expected something cute. Like you see in the commercials. Instead it looked as if this thing had spewed from an Ouija board. As my feet inched across the threshold, the sounds from the cat deepened. I slowly retreated.

“It  _has_   _to_  be that one,” Arthur nodded. He stood in the hallway between me and the beast, like a guardian of peace. He looked between us before sending me a wry smile. “What, you’re afraid of cats now?”

“No, but I’m not fond of demons.”

“Alfred, he just needs time,” he assured me and held out his hand. He watched me, his green eyes pleading, and I finally extended my hand and grabbed his. Together we stood watching the cat gurgle, and I thought to myself,

_‘Time to sleep with a knife.’_

* * *

I had been with Arthur for just over a year. We met while backpacking across the states. In a dirty motel room, we shared a bottle of shampoo and got chatting, and before I knew it the sun was rising and I was in love.

But I lived in New Mexico, and Arthur lived in New York, and we both found ourselves caught up in an adulthood of commitments. Determined to make it work, we saved every penny we had and travelled back and forth between our homes, spending long weekends together and even longer weeks apart. So I wasn’t surprised when Arthur announced he was going to get a pet to keep him company. But I was surprised by the choice.

I tried to get on with the weekend as usual. I made us breakfast in the morning and we ate on the patio, and I drove Arthur around to a few museums, and he took me to some new restaurant in town in the evening. But no matter how routine it felt, how at home I was once again with him, I would surely cross a doorway at some point, and there the cat would be, and we would look at each other and scowl.

“You act as if I’ve entered your territory,” I scoffed at it once, and it started hissing at me. “But I’ve been with Arthur longer than you have, so you’re kind of trespassing on my property.” It didn’t seem to care. At night, Arthur closed the bedroom door to allow us peace under the covers, but I could hear it, mewling and scratching at the frame, as if it was begging for Arthur to let it in.

“It’s like having a baby,” Arthur chuckled the last night I was there. It was midnight, and the mewling hadn’t stopped since ten when we slipped to bed.

I grimaced, “Well, this is great contraception then.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand why you can’t give him a chance.”

“I’ve been here for five days. I’m out of chances. Since it saw me, it decided to kill me,” I said.

“Don’t be foolish.”

I felt my cheeks go red. I couldn’t understand how Arthur was so blind to the little monster’s terror. I grabbed at the duvet and turned around, my back facing him, and I spoke, “All I am saying is that I’m glad to be going home tomorrow.” I could feel a dense silence take over the room the moment the words left my lips. Arthur didn’t say anything, not even goodnight. I just heard him turn his back on me too before he turned off the lights.

In the silence, not even the cat’s mewling could be heard.

* * *

Over the next few months, the situation didn’t get better. Every time I visited, the cat would growl and hiss at me, Arthur would insist that we get along, and we would end up arguing instead. It got to a point where work gave me a long weekend off, but instead of travelling to see him as I would normally, I lied and called him to say I had to do overtime.

“Okay, maybe next month,” Arthur said on the phone. His voice sounded sad, but I didn’t dare to linger on it.

I couldn’t figure out why he had picked that cat. Of all the animals he could have gotten, why did he purposely pick out one that was clearly unstable? And why did the cat not seem to mind Arthur, but it was on my back every time it saw me? The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.

When it was time to see Arthur again, I didn’t bring my holdall. Instead, when he opened the door and smiled at me, I gave him a long, stern look and said, “I think we need to talk.”

Arthur’s smile fell, but he nodded and slowly averted his eyes. “Yes, I think so too.”

He made us drinks, and we sat on his patio and watched the sky as the stars came out. It was getting cold. The winds of autumn swept across the garden, picked up golden leaves, and let them dance at our feet. Once, we would have laughed and commented on the scenery, and I could have almost found it romantic. Now, it was just sad and dreary. Instead of looking alive, all I could focus on was that the leaves were dead, and would soon crumble.

“How much do we really know about each other?” Arthur asked.

I stirred my drink and shrugged. “I mean, we like the same food and movies and-”

“No, like, really know about each other. Like how we grew up. Who our friends were. What we wanted to be. How much do we know?”

I bit my inner cheek and let go of my drink. I looked across the table at him. He sat in his thick jacket, scarf hanging loosely around his neck, and his hands covered in finger-less gloves. I looked at his red fingertips and took in a deep breath. “We rushes into this, didn’t we?”

“That’s what love does, it makes you rush,” Arthur said and smiled a sad smile. “But it’s not necessarily a bad think. First, there must be passion. But understanding must follow, or there is nothing left.”

I leaned back in my chair and cocked my head to the side. “Okay,” I said, “what do I need to understand?”

Arthur looked ahead of him, but I don’t think his gaze really lingered at anything. His hands were in his lap, resting, as he took in deep breaths. “Well,” he spoke, “growing up, I was beaten. Every day.”

I almost laughed because surely he was joking? But Arthur didn’t smile, and he didn’t flinch. His lips kept moving,

“It didn’t matter what I did, it was wrong. And if it wasn’t wrong, it was me showing off, and showing off? Well, that is wrong. Until I turned fourteen and my dad passed away, I didn’t know a day of calm.”

And so he spoke, and so he kept speaking, of fear and anxiety and uncertainty. And as he spoke, he cried, and as he cried, I cried, but he didn’t stop speaking. Of missing his mum, of his first love, of finding comfort with me around. A stable routine he could work on making certain. “I was so sad when you couldn’t make it for the long weekend,” he finally said, “after all, it is routine that you come, and I like routine.”

I felt so guilty I could be sick. Instead, I leaned in over the table, held out my hands, and asked, “So why the cat?”

“It’s been abused since it was a kitten,” he said and wiped his face off in his sleeve. He turned and took my hands in his and looked me in the eyes as he said, “If I couldn’t trust people once, how could I expect him to? I only hope that like I came to grow strong and love you, so will he.”

There wasn’t another thing he could have said to make my heart skip beats.

* * *

For the next few months, I kept to my routine of visiting Arthur. I would make breakfast and serve it on the patio, and I would drive him to museums, and we would go to restaurants in the evening. Sometimes I would cross a door and see the cat, but instead of staring at him, I would ignore him and leave him be and get on with my business. And somehow, he seemed to start getting on with his things as well.

As his knowledge of me grew, so did his confidence in seeing me around Arthur, and soon there were no more mewling outside the bedroom door. Once, I left it slightly open, just a crack, so that I could see if he sat there. But he didn’t come even once during the night. We slept, arms wrapped around each other, and I thought,

_‘This is happiness.’_

My worry only sparked when Arthur sat me down in the morning and asked, “Will you move in with me?”

It was a Monday. It was raining, and my flight was due in three hours. I still had to make my way to the airport, and I felt a jittery feeling of stress bounce around my body. His words did not make me calmer. “What?” I asked, perhaps a bit too flustered.

Arthur dragged his cup of tea closer and repeated, “Will you move in with me?” As I didn’t speak at first, he started blabbering slightly, “I mean, we get on well, do we not? And I have plenty of space. And I think it could be great. You could get a job in town, I am sure. We could make it work.”

“What about the cat?” I asked.

We both looked at the doorway where he sat, perfectly still, watching us. His green eyes seemed to glimmer as he looked between us, engaged in the conversation.

“What about you?” Arthur asked him.

He got up, slowly, and stretched his legs. Front, then back, then wagged his tail and turned around in a circle, before tapping his way over to me. He looked up, then jumped, and settled in my lap.

We were quiet. Arthur, in shock, and I too stunned, but just as much because I feared any movement in my body would send him mewling and sprinting out of the kitchen. But instead he curled up and purred, and as my fingertips dug into his thick, soft fur, I felt my heart calm. The stress left my body. I could only smile.

“He just needs time, you said,” I smiled at Arthur, and he smiled back at me and grabbed my hand.

“So did you,” he said.

He couldn’t have been more right.


End file.
